This invention pertains to methods of producing precious metals electrolytically from solutions and in particular methods of producing palladium from solutions containing palladium and platinum.
In natural ores the metals platinum and palladium are frequently associated with each other. Ores are known that have much more palladium than platinum. A method of enriching the relative concentrations of platinum to palladium would be very useful for processing these ores. The conventional method of recovering platinum from a solution of platinum and palladium involves precipitating ammonium platinum VI hexachloride to a solution containing platinum hexachloride and palladium tetrachloride.
A process for the separation and recovery of noble metals disclosed in Chemical Abstracts 94:34295f show the electrowinning of both platinum and palladium from a solution that contains other metal ions. Neither platinum nor palladium was selectively removed.